DaysofPal – Civil defense teams in the central Gaza Strip recovered the remains of 14 Palestinians, among them women and children, from beneath the rubble of two homes in the al-Maghazi refugee camp on Monday, after hours of painstaking work. The homes had been bombed by Israeli warplanes during the two-year Israeli campaign in Gaza.
Medical sources confirmed that rescue crews managed to reach the deeply buried remains despite extreme difficulties. Eight of the victims belonged to the Abu Hamda family, while six were from the Haj Yousef family, a grim scene emblematic of the scale of destruction left by the sustained attacks.
The Ministry of Health said that retrieving bodies buried beneath hundreds of destroyed homes continues to present enormous challenges for ambulance and civil defense teams.
Their efforts are severely hampered by a critical shortage of equipment and heavy machinery, particularly excavators essential for lifting massive concrete slabs.
Figures from Gaza’s Government Media Office illustrate the enormity of the disaster: Israeli bombardment has destroyed 90% of the enclave’s civilian infrastructure over the past two years, generating more than 70 million tons of rubble, one of the region’s largest humanitarian catastrophes in decades.
Dozens of families are still begging for assistance in retrieving the bodies of loved ones months after their deaths, the Civil Defense Authority has repeatedly warned. However, the agency says it is incapable of responding to many of these appeals due to the near-total absence of necessary equipment.
Vital institutions in Gaza are calling on the international community to pressure Israel to open the crossings and allow in heavy machinery and basic supplies, insisting that even a minimum standard of life for 2.4 million Palestinians cannot be restored without such access.
Despite the ceasefire agreement that formally took effect on October 10, 2025, Israeli authorities continue to block the entry of hundreds of urgently needed machines and engineering tools, a move that has effectively frozen recovery efforts and left thousands of tons of rubble untouched across the Strip.
Shortlink for this post: https://daysofpalestine.ps/?p=69733
